Dixie Divas (22 page)

“Why, how tragic. There were laws like that? That’s simply archaic.”

“Yes, but if you put it in the context of the Patriot Act and today’s fear of terrorists, it’s a bit more understandable, I guess. A leap, but maybe understandable.”

We both sat quietly and thought about that for a moment; then Bitty sighed and said, “I hope he comes back soon. Maybe he can explain how Philip ended up on The Cedars’ floor with his head bashed in.”

“It’d be nice.”

At eleven each morning the Peabody ducks are brought down from the roof and Penthouse duck suite that had cost twenty-five thousand dollars back in 1982. They march across red carpet that leads from the elevator to the marble fountain in the center of the lobby. A Duck Master ambles along behind them, carrying a long stick just to guide the mallards along should they decide to stray. Heaps of corn are positioned on ledge corners in the middle of the fountain, and John Philip Sousa’s march plays on speakers as tourists crowd around with cameras to take pictures. The ducks seem to take it all in stride, tourists are delighted, and the hotel gift shop sells dozens of duck-related items from shoehorns to mallard telephones. I still miss the original Duck Master, Edward Pembroke, a former circus roustabout and acknowledged attraction in his own right. On any given day, Mr. Pembroke was liable to say almost anything. He’d been quite a hit on
The Tonight Show
. I’ve always wished I’d spent more time talking with the elderly gentleman, as his life story was more interesting than anything I’d ever heard then or since. A real piece of not only Memphis history, but human history. I hope he somehow knows that he is irreplaceable.

Anyway, right after the ducks marched, so did we. Bitty had insisted on valet parking as the bright morning sunlight might hurt little Chen Ling’s eyes, so I let her pay for it. We always go Dutch even though Bitty sometimes grumbles that she can afford it better than I can. She’s right, but there’s a certain sense of failure and embarrassment that I’m this old and have no more money put back than I do.

That led me to wonder how Sherman Sanders paid for the upkeep on The Cedars, since I know firsthand what it costs to pay for old houses’ tendency to need frequent, and often costly, repairs. How had he sustained it? Family money had long since dwindled, if rumor was correct.

“I don’t remember if I ever knew Sanders had a job of any kind,” I said once we were on the I-55 interstate and heading toward I-240 and the exit of 78 Highway. “Did he?”

“Not that I know about. He did some farming, leased out some pastures, cut hay and let people come buy it, but that doesn’t sound like a lot of money, does it.”

“Not enough to keep up an old house as well as he has,” I mused. “Although if he took care of the small problems before they became big ones, that wouldn’t cost as much.”

“Maybe that explains why his front yard has always looked like a hog wallow. He used to have goats, but I don’t know if he has any now. Just that mule.”

“And Tuck,” I murmured, thinking how isolated he was from society.

“You’re feeling sorry for that old man, aren’t you,” Bitty said. “He may be a murderer, you know.”

“I know.”

“Of course, if he murdered Philip he deserves a medal for it. That man was a boil on the backside of humanity.”

“I know,” I said again. Bitty was wrong about me feeling sorry for Sanders. He’d chosen to live as he did. I had more of a pragmatic view of the entire situation. How did he afford to live on so little money? I wanted to know his secret. It may come in quite handy. Maybe he dabbled in stocks. That’s too risky for me. Most people don’t have enough reverence for others’ money.

“Mrs. Hollandale called me last night,” Bitty said then, and I gave her a startled look. A smile of satisfaction curved Bitty’s mouth, so I knew that her ex-mother-in-law must have gotten as good as she’d probably given. “I let her go on for a few minutes, you know, since she is his mama, and even if he was a rotten sonuvabitch and a pervert, she loved him. But after a little while, I got tired of listening to her rant about how I’d ruined him financially and tried to ruin his career, and so I told her a few things about her son that I’ve wanted to say for years.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. Before I got to the part about incest and how she might want to talk to her daughter about a few things, she hung up on me. A pity. Maybe when I see her at the funeral I’ll suggest she go on TV and talk to Dr Phil. Or Jerry Springer.”

“You intend to go to the funeral?” I was both appalled and awed.

“I’ve already called Tina over at the Dress Barn and she’s ordered my outfit. Black silk, with tiny seed pearl buttons, and the cutest little hat with delicate wisps of net and more pearls. I should look quite respectable, a nice balance between grief—which would be too obvious since everyone in Marshall County and probably the entire state of Mississippi has to know how much I wanted that man dead—and formal regret that a United States senator has passed.”

“Bitty, you have to stop saying things like that.”

“Like what?”

“That you wanted Philip dead. Remember what Jackson Lee told you, to just let him do the talking.”

“That really is convenient, don’t you think? I can just sigh and look away and say, ‘I’m afraid my attorney has asked me not to comment’ when people bring it up, and then they can go on thinking whatever it is they wanted to think in the first place anyway, but they won’t be sure. I just love that.”

“You do know I won’t attend his funeral,” I said.

“Of course you will, Trinket. It wouldn’t look right if you didn’t. He was family.”

“Since Miss Manners advises against brawls with the bereaved, I’ll follow her suggestion. It seems best.”

“Miss Manners,” Bitty sniffed. “What does she know? She’s probably a Yankee anyway.”

“Unless etiquette rules have changed a lot since I’ve been gone from Holly Springs, I don’t think I recall brawling as an acceptable part of Southern funerals.”

“Then obviously, you haven’t been to very many funerals. Good Lord, Trinket, don’t you remember my Uncle Fred on Mama’s side? We may have only been eleven, but you can’t have forgotten
his
funeral. Aunt Lilly took a swing at Karleen Shepherd, who’d been sneaking around with Uncle Fred, then Karleen’s brother Sid hit our cousin Jerry and knocked him down into the open grave, and the preacher from the
Red
Banks
Baptist
Church
fell in on top of him trying to get out of the way. You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten that!”

“Mama took me and Emerald to the car,” I said, “but I do remember people with torn clothes and bruises coming to the house afterward to eat. And red dirt smeared everywhere.”

“I had a ringside seat, up on Uncle Fred’s coffin where Daddy put me so I didn’t get hit and get dirt all over my pretty new dress. Anyway, that’s a funeral I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Or all those grieving kinfolks taking swings at each other.”

“That kind of grief isn’t usually expressed until the reading of the will,” I commented, and we both started laughing.

Maybe going to Philip’s funeral wasn’t such a bad idea after all. While I certainly didn’t want to be witness to a brawl like at Uncle Fred’s funeral, whoever had killed Philip might just be among the mourners.

Chapter Eleven

Those first hours in the house by myself felt not only odd, but blessedly peaceful. After dropping Bitty off at her house and suggesting she take Chen Ling back to Luann Carey before she got too attached, I returned to Cherryhill and parked Mama’s Lincoln in the garage, went inside, took off my nice slacks and sweater, put on a sweat shirt and pair of old jogging pants that I’d used when painting walls, and let the comfortable silence close around me.

Sunlight seeped through tall windows to warm the rooms, just as it had when I was a little girl and played with the dust motes. Now, while I might be thinking about having to dust those motes off furniture, I still enjoy soaking up the light.

Brownie followed me around, looking lost. I tried to get him to go outside, but he stood in the open doorway peering into the yard and refused to move. When I tried to make him, he curled back his upper lip in a snarl. I let it go. For now.

“Experts say,” I promised him when he followed me upstairs to my room, “that dogs don’t have any concept of time. It doesn’t matter if Mama is gone an hour or a month, you won’t know the difference. Be glad. It has to be one of Mother Nature’s compensations for being unable to make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Tilting his head from one side to the other, he looked at me like he understood every word, but I knew that was just my imagination. I’d said some unkind things in the past that he’d no doubt still remember, if that were true.

I retrieved my book off the night stand where I’d left it the night before, and put the pair of emerald earrings I’d worn to Memphis into a little crystal jar with my watch, a habit I’d begun years ago. Brownie went back downstairs with me, and cuddled up next to me on the couch while I read a book and he fell asleep with his head nestled against my hip. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked softly, marked the half hours with a deep-throated
bong
, and squares of sunlight moved slowly across the warm beige carpet. After the frenzied hours of the past week, the total peace closed around me like a security blanket.

Something woke me, and I opened my eyes, blinking. I sat up slowly, and wiped a thin line of drool off my chin. Sunlight squares had changed to dim rectangles and a fuzzy glow. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I’ve never been a person who takes naps. Usually I feel worse when I wake up than I did before I fell asleep. Maybe because of the weird dreams I have in the daytime.

When I stood up, Brownie appeared at my feet from wherever he’d been in the house. He wagged his tail expectantly, and I yawned and went to get a glass of Coke, then I put on the thick rubber yard boots kept on the back deck to perform the afternoon ritual of cat medicating and feeding. Brownie was quite happy to help me by scattering birds pecking around Mama’s feeders and keeping sinister squirrels at a distance.

Everyone has their own routine and way of doing things, but I’ve always thought it more efficient if Mama and Daddy would feed the loose cats before medicating those inside the barn. That way, the cats would be gathered around the pans of food outside, unless there’s inclement weather, and the sick cats would be more eager for their food and less likely to resist medication.

Remind me never to apply for a position as an efficiency expert.

Caged cats tend to be cranky when other cats are eating within eyesight or smelling distance and some person is trying to poke pills or squeeze liquid down their throats. Even with the welder’s glove, which is bulky and clumsy, it’s really hard holding on to a struggling cat and using the plastic pill shooter at the same time. By the time I got to the third cage and last patient, sweat had made my hair wet and my antiperspirant had stopped working. My underarms were uncomfortably damp.

“Come on,” I coaxed out loud while inside I was screeching
Take the damn pill!
“Just open a little bit wider and it’ll all be over.”

The cat, a fat orange and white male with malevolently narrowed gold eyes, hissed so loud and hard that globs of spit sprayed my face. That’s when I jammed the pill shooter down his throat, hit the plunger, and injected a small tablet almost all the way out his other end. About that time, Brownie, still on his mission of clearing the area of terrorist squirrels, chased one into the barn. Baying like the hound of the Baskervilles and stretched out in a dead run, the dog passed me long before I saw the squirrel a good ten yards ahead of him. The cat hacked up the pill that shot at me like a missile, used the welder’s glove as a launching pad, and flew over my shoulder and up into the air where he landed a good six feet behind me.

I turned just in time to see an orange tail streak up into the hayloft. Hayloft is more of a reminiscent name for it. What’s in the hayloft now is just remnants of molded straw. And probably thriving mice colonies. Maybe even rats. I don’t like rats. I briefly debated, sighed, and reluctantly pursued the escapee. A broken promise to my mother just isn’t something I want to contemplate.

Distracted by this new prey, Brownie had already climbed halfway up the ladder to the loft by the time I got there. I pulled him down and told him to
Sit
without a hope he’d listen, then went up after the cat.

What happened in the loft, shall stay in the loft. Suffice it to say I triumphed, though only because the cat boxed himself into a corner and the welder’s gloves held up.

I deposited the cat back into his cage, gave him another pill, then fed him, cleaned three cages and litter boxes, and wobbled toward the open barn door. Several empty tin bowls and no cats waited for me. Brownie had disappeared. I’m sure I saw the squirrel he’d been chasing up in an oak tree eating dry cat food. He seemed to be laughing, but I’m not so sure about that.

“Brownie,” I called after I’d washed out and put away tin bowls and refilled water tubs.

No dog. No bark. Light deepened into purple shadows. They settled around the house and barn, and the air turned brisk. I walked around to the front of the house where dogwood trees had buds and daffodils were already opening. Probably a half acre stretched between the house and the street. It sloped gently downward, ending in a drainage ditch Marshall County had put in back when the subdivision down the road was being built. White river rocks lining the ditch gleamed in the dusk.

There was no sign of Brownie, and I had a moment of panic. Stories of dogs traveling great distances to find their owners flashed through my mind. Not that I think Brownie is smart enough to do that, but he is dumb enough to try. I walked up and down the road, peered into thickets of blackberry bushes, wild plum, and river willows growing in the wet land along the drainage ditch, calling him until I was hoarse. Now, this is a dog that can be heard over three counties when he sets up a howl. Just how far away could he have gotten in such a short time?